10 Things We Ate Growing Up (And Still Would Now)

Round here, food wasn’t just something on your plate — it was the smell of tea cooking before you’d even took your coat off. It was whatever your mum could make stretch, or what your gran could cook with her eyes closed. It was filling, familiar, and always a bit better when the heating was off and you were still in your school uniform.

These aren’t the fancy dishes you’ll find on tasting menus. They’re the teas, butties and traybakes that built us — and truth be told, we’d still eat every single one today.

1. Rag Pudding

Soft suet pastry, rich mince and gravy, all steamed in a cloth. Rag pudding’s a proper staple that’s somehow still standing. You’ll still find it in some chippies, sitting proudly next to the pies — thicker, heartier, and made to warm you right through.

2. Parched Peas

A Bonfire Night essential — though some places serve them all year. Black peas soaked, slow-boiled, then drowned in vinegar and salt. Served in paper pots with a wooden spoon. A taste of childhood for some, an acquired one for others.

3. Butter Pie

Pastry, potatoes, onions, and a scandalous amount of butter — that’s it. Born out of Catholic communities avoiding meat on Fridays, the butter pie became a go-to across dinner tables and pie shops alike. No beef, no bacon, just honest stodge done right. If you’ve never had one with a dollop of brown sauce… you’ve not lived.

4. Jam & Coconut Sponge with Pink Custard

If you know, you know. That square traybake sponge with raspberry jam, desiccated coconut, and a puddle of pastel-pink custard flooding the plate. Served in school canteens across the region, usually with a big metal spoon and no questions asked. Was it gourmet? No. Was it elite? Absolutely. Still turns up at family dos and traybake stalls if you’re lucky.

5. Smacks & Pea Wet

Smacks, or Potato Scallops, battered slices of potato, golden and crisp round the edges, were the kind of chippy tea you got when you were skint but still needed feeding. Usually dropped straight onto a barm, splashed with vinegar, and topped off with a ladle of mushy pea water (aka “pea wet”). It looked like chaos and tasted like magic. Still served with pride in proper chippies if you know where to look.

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6. Tater Ash

Call it corned beef hash, potato hash, or lobby — but in most houses, it was just “tater ash.” A big bubbling pan of potatoes, onions, whatever meat you had (tinned or mince), maybe some carrots or beans thrown in if it needed stretching. Some versions were soupy, others were more like a dry fry-up — but every version filled the kitchen with steam and smelled like home. Served with red cabbage, brown sauce, or just a buttered barm on the side. It wasn’t a recipe, it was a reflex.

7. Cheese Whirls

Shop-bought or made by hand, these flaky pastry spirals filled with grated cheese were a lunchbox legend. Some had a bit of mustard or herbs, others were just straight cheddar and grease — either way, they were always the first thing nicked off the buffet table. Best eaten warm, better cold the next day, and unbeatable with a blob of ketchup on the side.

8. Jam Roll & Custard

Jam roly-poly — or just “jam roll” — was a proper suet pudding, rolled up like a Swiss roll with jam inside and steamed or baked until soft and sticky. It usually arrived sliced into thick rounds and drenched in custard so yellow it glowed. Some versions were homemade, some were school dinner staples, but every one of them had the same goal: warm you up and shut you up. Comfort food at its finest.. Every school, nan and dinner lady had their own take — and most of them were elite.

9. Cheese & Onion Plate Pie

Not your usual pasty — this is a flat, family-size pie baked on a tin plate and sliced like cake. The filling? Strong cheddar and sliced onions, nothing else. No extras, no herbs, no messing. Usually served with chips and a warning it’ll burn your mouth if you rush it.

The Taste of Growing Up Round Here

These weren’t five-star meals. They didn’t need to be. They were hot, homemade, and handed to you with a “get that down ya.” They filled your plate and your memory, and even now — years later — there’s something about them that still tastes like home.